Vivicittà Firenze Half Marathon

 This morning I ran my first ever half-marathon, in Florence nonetheless. For those of you keeping track at home thats 13.1 miles, or just over 21 kilometers as it is more commonly referred to in Europe. The event was pretty big and drew in over 1,000 participants. This year was the 27th running of the Vivicittà Firenze. I got up early this morning to meet a middle-aged runner, Roberto, who is associated with the running club at Lorenzo de Medici and also happens to know one of the organizers of the half-marathon. So fortunately with his help I was able to take part in this event. It was a rainy morning but that did not stop many runners from showing up. Roberto gave me a singlet to race in, which was more like the football practice jerseys I would wear in junior high. But its the thought that counts right? I put it on since I didn't bring anything better to run in to Florence. It didn't matter anyway because he suggested I put on a water-proof running vest (sounds stupid, but everyone wears them) over it to help with the rain. The entrance fee was only five euro and came with the previously described vest and an event t-shirt. I was originally entered in the non-competitive run, which would have sucked because I think that was only a 12K. But fortunately Roberto was able to get me a "competitive" bib since some of the entered runners had not shown up yet and it was getting close to race time. I paid five more euros for a high-tech timing chip which was refundable once I returned my chip after the race. Now I was officially allowed to run in the half-marathon. I could tell there had to be some decent prize money to be won because a few Kenyans showed up. I did not feel like warming up so I just stood under a ledge and waited for everyone to line up at the start. I would ease into my pace since I had to swerve in and out of slow people ahead of me anyway.

My goal was to complete the race without hurting myself, since I am definitely not in shape to race a half-marathon right now. As I previously discussed with Pete, it should be a hard tempo run. I think I executed perfectly. I fell into a comfortable pace and stayed pretty consistent throughout, every time I checked my 5k splits they were right about 19 minutes each. The half-marathon course was basically two loops on each side of the Arno, taking runners through most of Florence's famous piazzas. The start and finish were in the big square in front of Santa Croce. I almost took a wrong turn when the course split up the competitive race from the non-competitive runners. Luckily I was able to turn around and see which way the other runners with blue bibs were going. I also almost "ate it" while turning off one of the bridges over the Arno onto a perpendicular street. I took it very wide and tried to stay on more asphalt than cobble-stone but it was still raining and very slippery. Fortunately I recovered and was only thrown off balance, instead of falling on my face. The course was very flat for the most part. My aerobic fitness was still there and my legs didn't get real tired until 14/15k. Besides those minor things the race went very well. I was handed a really cool participation medal at the finish and moved on to the refreshment tents. Post-race snacks are a little different in Italy. They still have water, sports drink, and fruit; but in addition to that they also had cut up fruit crescents and hot tea. For fruit they had cut up banana chunks and sliced blood oranges. I snacked on a bunch of this food since the only thing I ate all day was an apple when I got up. I changed into some warm clothes and walked home, eager to take a hot shower after being rained on all day. Today was such a priceless experience which I was very satisfied to take part in. How many Americans can say they walked down the street to run a half-marathon through Florence?


I can't find my Italian alias in the race results but I know I finished around 1:20:45, good enough for about 30th place.

Edit:   I just found a picture that helps me piece together my finish time. I was actually 1:20:30, which got me 23rd!